METALLICA's 'Hardwired… To Self-Destruct' To Return To No. 2 Thanks To Concert Ticket/Album Bundle
According to Hits Daily Double, METALLICA‘s latest album, “Hardwired… To Self-Destruct”, will likely land at position No. 2 on this weekend’s Billboard 200 chart, following sizable sales generated from a concert ticket/album sale redemption offer with the band’s upcoming U.S. and Canada tour. (The redemptions count as sales.) The disc, which arrived in November 2016, shifted approximately 66,000 equivalent album units in the week ending March 22.

Unlike XXXTentacion‘s “?”, which is expected to top this weekend’s chart, METALLICA‘s No. 2 showing is driven by traditional album sales, as effectively all of its units were in pure sales.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The top 10 of the new March 31-dated Billboard 200 chart is scheduled to be revealed on Billboard‘s web site on Sunday, March 25.

When METALLICA bundled “Hardwired… To Self-Destruct” with tickets to its North American stadium tour last year, the band worked with WMG to remind fans to download the album, pushing it back up to No. 2 on the Billboard 200.

According to Billboard, “Hardwired… To Self-Destruct” is METALLICA‘s 12th album to sell at least a million copies since Nielsen Music began tracking sales in 1991.

In total, the group has sold 58 million albums in the U.S. in the Nielsen Music era, and owns the overall top-selling album of that span of time: its self-titled 1991 release, with nearly 17 million sold.